Sports Mouthguards

A small investment that prevents decades of consequence

Dental trauma is one of the most lasting injuries an athlete can sustain. A knocked-out front tooth at sixteen is a story that follows someone for the rest of their life, root canal therapy, a crown that may need to be replaced multiple times across the decades, possibly an implant in middle age when the original tooth finally fails. None of that happens if the tooth was protected when it took the hit.

A custom-fitted sports mouthguard is the simplest, most cost-effective piece of protective equipment any athlete owns. It is a few hundred dollars and lasts years. It prevents an injury that could cost tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime restorative work and the kind of inconvenience that no amount of money fully undoes. The math is straightforward.

Who actually needs one

Any athlete in a contact or collision sport, football, lacrosse, ice hockey, field hockey, wrestling, rugby, boxing, mixed martial arts, should wear one at every practice and every game. Many of those sports require them, but the requirement is often satisfied with a basic boil-and-bite guard that provides far less protection than a custom version.

Athletes in sports that are not officially contact sports still benefit. Basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, lacrosse goalies, and water polo all produce a meaningful share of dental injuries. So do recreational and lifestyle activities, mountain biking, skateboarding, BMX, off-road riding. And in Hunt Country, equestrians deserve particular attention: foxhunting, eventing, steeplechase, and any cross-country riding carry real fall risk, and a custom guard is small insurance against a face-first landing on the rail or the ground.

How a custom guard is made

The first appointment is brief. We take a digital scan or a traditional impression of your upper teeth, sometimes also the lower, depending on the design, and discuss what sport you play and how much coverage and thickness you need. The lab fabricates the guard from a pressure-laminated thermoplastic material, building it up in layers to the specified thickness, then trimming it precisely to your dental anatomy.

About two weeks later you come back for the fitting. We seat the guard, check that it stays in place when you speak and breathe normally, verify the bite is balanced, and adjust any spots that feel high or tight. A well-made guard should feel snug but comfortable, allow clear speech, and not interfere with breathing through the mouth when you need to. If anything is off, we adjust it on the spot.

Caring for it so it lasts

A custom mouthguard is a meaningful piece of equipment and deserves the same care as any other protective gear. Rinse it in cool water before and after every use. Brush it gently with a toothbrush, no toothpaste, which can be too abrasive, and store it in a ventilated case so it dries fully between sessions. Heat is its enemy. Never leave it on a dashboard in summer, never put it in boiling water to clean it, and never put it through the dishwasher.

Bring it to every cleaning appointment so we can inspect it for wear, bite-through, or fit changes. Adolescent guards may need to be remade annually as teeth shift and jaws grow. Adult guards typically last three to five years before the material softens and the fit deteriorates enough to warrant replacement.

If an injury does happen

Even with a mouthguard, injuries occasionally happen. Our emergency dental care page covers the immediate steps for a knocked-out tooth, a fractured front tooth, or a soft-tissue laceration. The short version: time matters. A tooth that has been out of the mouth for less than 30 minutes has a much better chance of being saved than one out for two hours. Call immediately, we will fit you in the same day if at all possible.